NOTE: New (free) email course. Build your writing habit at kdv.co/100

02/16/21 • 1 min

Hey, just a quick note to let you know I’m launching a new (free) email course. It’s 100-Word Writing Habit, and you can sign up at kdv.co/100

I built my writing career by building a writing habit. Three books later, I still write 100 words first thing in the morning.

That gets me going so – in addition to books – I can ship an email newsletter each week, and a couple 2,000-word articles on this podcast, and a 5,000-word income report each month.

Sure, I write more than 100 words a day, but it all starts with my 100-word habit.

100-Word Writing Habit: New FREE email course (starts March 3rd)

My 100-word writing habit is so powerful, I'm starting a new email course to teach it to others.

Learn the power behind the 100-word habit, as well as how to set yourself up so you never miss a day.

Hey, just a quick note to let you know I’m launching a new (free) email course. It’s 100-Word Writing Habit, and you can sign up at kdv.co/100

I built my writing career by building a writing habit. Three books later, I still write 100 words first thing in the morning.

That gets me going so – in addition to books – I can ship an email newsletter each week, and a couple 2,000-word articles on this podcast, and a 5,000-word income report each month.

Sure, I write more than 100 words a day, but it all starts with my 100-word habit.

100-Word Writing Habit: New FREE email course (starts March 3rd)

My 100-word writing habit is so powerful, I'm starting a new email course to teach it to others.

Learn the power behind the 100-word habit, as well as how to set yourself up so you never miss a day.

Previous Episode

248. Understanding Media (by Marshall McLuhan) Book Summary

You’ve heard the expression, “The medium is the message.” But what does that really mean? “The medium is the message” is a term coined by Marshall McLuhan in his book, Understanding Media: Extensions of Man. More than fifty years after it was published – in 1964 – Understanding Media reads as if it’s from the future. In this Understanding Media summary, I’ll break down – in my own words – why “The medium is the message,” as well as other key ideas within this media theory classic.

Three key ideas in Understanding Media

I’m going to cover three key ideas in this summary:

The medium is the message. Basically, it’s not the content of the medium that matters. Instead, the characteristics of that medium determine its content.
We’re shifting from mechanical technology to electric technology. Mechanical technology such as wheels, roads, and the printing press influence us in different ways from electric technology such as the lightbulb, television, or – today – the internet.
Mechanical technology detribalized humans. Now electric technology is retribalizing humans. This shift causes stress in the ways we interact with one another. Our lack of awareness of how technology changes the way we interact is a threat to civilization.

McLuhan weaves these and other ideas throughout the book as he analyzes things you might normally think of as media – such as radio, television, and books – but also things you might normally not think of as media – such as roads, clothes, money, and clocks.

Now, each of those three main ideas, in more detail:

1. The medium is the message

What does “The medium is the message” mean? McLuhan says:

The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – results from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.

Media are extensions of ourselves

Let me break down some ideas within this quote. First, McLuhan refers to media as “extensions of ourselves.” Remember, the subtitle of the book is Extensions of Man. McLuhan casts a wide net in what he thinks of as media. To McLuhan, media is anything that extends our capabilities as humans. As he says, “Any extension, whether of skin, hand, or foot, affects the psychic and social complex.” In other words, any media extends our capabilities. In the process, it changes how we think, and how we interact with one another.

Media changes our “sense ratios”

How does media change how we think and interact – the “psychic and social complex?” In the quote I presented earlier, McLuhan also talks about “the new scale that is introduced into our affairs,” by these extensions of ourselves.

Every medium alters what McLuhan calls “sense ratios.” We read a book with our eyes and our mind. We watch television with our eyes and our ears. The content of the medium comes to us through specific senses (sight, sound, touch, thought, etc.). As those senses are engaged, it affects how we use our other senses.

I’ve referred to this before, myself, giving an example of a chimp fishing ants out of an anthill with a stick. The stick is an extension of her hand. While she’s holding that stick, she can’t use that hand for some other purpose, such as to defend herself from an attack by another chimp. Even if she could, she might not notice the attack, since she’s focused mentally on the stick, and whether or not it has ants on it.

So as a medium makes one thing easy, it makes other things hard.

If you are reading this summary, you’re using different senses than if you are listening to it. That changes how you interact with this summary. If you’re reading, you can easily re-read parts. If you’re listening, it’s less likely you’ll rewind to re-listen to parts.

If you’re reading on a laptop or a phone or an ebook reader, each of these devices will also change how you engage with the content. Reading on an ebook reader while lying alone on your couch is different than listening on a subway surrounded by people, or listening on a bluetooth speaker while cooking dinner.

The medium itself alters the content

A really subtle part of McLuhan’s basic description is that “personal and social consequences of any medium...[result]” from this altering of sense ratios.

In other words, the characteristics of the medium cause personal and social consequences. What’s subtly implied here is that the content we’re so often concerned about – violence in video games, for example – is really caused by the medium itself.

As I write this summary, I’m thinking about what medium you’ll use to consume it. That’s changing the decisions I make...

Next Episode

249. How to Take Smart Notes Book Summary

If you’re a fan of using Getting Things Done to stay on top of all the, well, things you need to get done – you’ll love How to Take Smart Notes for staying on top of all the things you want to learn. I’ll give you an introduction – in my own words – in this How to Take Smart Notes book summary.

The note-taking system introduced in Sönke Ahrens’s How to Take Smart Notes is a bit like Getting Things Done for learning. GTD is great for things that have a clear objective. But creative insights can’t be planned, by definition. That’s the point of an insight, it comes out of nowhere.

One of my favorite quotes from the book:

It is a huge misunderstanding that the only alternative to planning is aimless messing around. The challenge is to structure one’s workflow in a way that insight and new ideas can become the driving forces that push us forward. —Sönke Ahrens

In other words, you can’t plan an insight, but you can structure the way you read and learn in a way that not only improves your retention, but that also leads you to new insights.

What is a Zettelkasten?

The system introduced in How to Take Smart Notes is called a Zettelkasten, which is German for “slip box.” A slip box was originally a box full of slips of paper, each slip with a little note on it. The slips were arranged and annotated in a certain way to facilitate thinking and to link ideas.

The most famous user of the Zettelkasten was a German sociologist named Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann credited his slip box for his prolific career, in which he published 58 books and hundreds of articles. His actual Zettelkasten is being studied in a long-term project at the University of Bielefeld, in Germany.

The linking, keyword, and organization characteristics of a slip box were a precursor to our modern-day internet. But now that we’re no longer limited to slips of paper, writers and researchers are adapting the Zettelkasten technique to digital tools.

How do you take smart notes?

There are four basic steps to follow to make smart notes for your own Zettelkasten – or “slip box”, if you prefer:

Make fleeting notes: Always have a way to capture ideas that pop into your mind, or – if reading – read actively, highlighting and taking notes. I personally carry around a tiny notebook, and use the Drafts app on iOS to capture quick thoughts. I don’t take notes while I read, but I do highlight on my Kindle.
Make literature notes: Rewrite the important parts of what you’ve read. But, do it in your own words. It sounds pointless, but it’s surprisingly fun, and later on we’ll get to how it helps you learn better.
Make permanent notes: Break any literature notes or fleeting notes down to individual notes. Do this only for the most important ideas – the ones that are relevant to your interests and your ongoing projects. Do this a little bit each day, so you don’t get a huge backlog.
Add permanent notes to the slip box: Luhmann used a special branched numbering system to organize his notes. I prefer plain-English note titles. You also want to add relevant tags to each note, and link your note to related notes.

How to use your smart notes for learning and writing

The main reason to have a system like this is to direct your curiosity in a productive way, and turn your learning into writing. There are three things you’ll do with your slip box:

Develop topics: As you make new notes, themes will start to develop around your areas of interest. You can interact with your notes to follow the links, and you’ll see holes in your knowledge to guide your learning.
Getting research/writing ideas: You’ll never have to wonder again what you’d like to read about or write about. It will be clear from where there are lots of notes clustered around a topic in your slip box. For example, you may have many notes with a certain tag, or if you use a piece of software such as Obsidian you can visualize which notes link to one another to see patterns in your thinking.
Turn your notes into writing: You can collect your notes together, and quickly form rough drafts for articles or books. Don’t simply copy your notes, though. Rewrite them, stitching them together along the way to create a completed piece.

How to Write Smart Notes is primarily directed at academic writers, and, as Ahrens points out, most books on academic writing see writing papers as a linear task, with a beginning and an end. I...